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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Clearing the Cache

I save links that I
want to write about. I save far more links that I could ever possibly
write about even if I spent all my time in front of my computer
typing. What happens to these links when they get too old? I have to
do something with them. For those that are time sensitive or which
became stale to me, I usually delete them without fanfare. But there
are certain links that still have to power to hold my interest and
move me even after they are no longer news. These are the links that
collect in the bottom of my link collection. They are too good to
throw away. I have decided to post them to my blog partly for
archival purposes, and partly to share the things that I found
interesting. In no certain order, here we go.

The above, while a true evaluation of
the situation does not explain why the raid on the Stonewall caused
such a strong reaction. Why the Stonewall, and not the Sewer or the
Snake Pit? The answer lies, we believe, in the unique nature of the
Stonewall. This club was more than a dance bar, more than just a gay
gathering place. It catered largely to a group of people who are not
welcome in, or cannot afford, other places of homosexual social
gathering.

The "drags" and the "queens",
two groups which would find a chilly reception or a barred door at
most of the other gay bars and clubs, formed the "regulars"
at the Stonewall. To a large extent, the club was for them.... Apart
from the Goldbug and the One Two Three, "drags" and
"queens" had no place but the Stonewall....

Susan D., a survivor of sexual assault
who reported the incident to police in 2011, told HRW, “Reporting
to the police was far more traumatizing than the rape itself.” Her
sentiments were echoed in a 2009 complaint form sent to the Office of
Police Complaints, which read, ““I think that filing the report
was just as traumatic as the crime, if not more…. Is it common
place for the police to put blame on the sexual assault victims and
then completely ignore them?”

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty years after the
Supreme Court issued its opinion in Roe v. Wade, significantly more
Americans want the landmark abortion decision kept in place rather
than overturned, 53% to 29%. Another 18% have no opinion, the highest
level of uncertainty Gallup has recorded on this question in trends
dating to 1989.

The group is battling legislation that
it says is intended to intimidate women. The latest flashpoint is a
provision requiring patients get counseling from crisis pregnancy
centers that oppose abortions and try to discourage them.

And maybe most interestingly, The Huffington Post has some history
and a firsthand account of the significance of Roe vs Wade titled
simply Roe
at 40!

Before turning to Roe, some history is
in order. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the prevailing
view was that human life did not exist until quickening (when the
mother first feels movement), which typically occurs at around
eighteen weeks, or roughly halfway through a pregnancy. American
courts, following the English common law, consistently held that
abortion before quickening was not a crime. Let me say that again: At
the time the Constitution was adopted, abortion in the first eighteen
weekss of a woman's pregancy was lawful.

Abortion rates soared in the
mid-nineteenth century, as Americans left the land for industrial
jobs. The large families vital to farming became burdens in crowded
cities. Abortifacients were widely available from mail-order firms
and pharmacists, and newspapers regularly ran ads for products and
persons to "cure" pregnancy or "restore menses."
Social scientists estimate that twenty percent of all pregnancies in
this era were terminated by abortion.

These results are from a Gallup survey
conducted Jan. 19-20. The question does not tell respondents that all
nine proposals come from Obama's recently released plan to reduce gun
violence; however, the wordings used to describe them intentionally
follow the White
House's "Now Is the Time" plan descriptions.

...

Although Democrats show more support
than Republicans for each proposal, majorities of both partisan
groups favor seven of the nine proposals. That includes nearly
universal support among Republicans and Democrats for requiring
criminal background checks for all gun sales. A majority of
Republicans also favor a ban on armor-piercing bullets and increasing
penalties for straw purchasers, as well as the various school
security, police funding, and mental health funding proposals tested.

The Boy Scouts of America teach young
men how to build fires, pitch tents, weave
camping chairs, and "be prepared"—unless your son
happens to be gay. But the Boy Scouts long-standing policy of banning
"open
or avowed homosexuals" is starting to cost it some major
financial backers: In the last six months, companies including UPS,
United
Way, the Merck
Company Foundation and the
Intel Foundation have announced they will drop or postpone
funding for the Boy Scouts. Verizon Communications could be next:
Over 70,000
people have signed a petition asking the corporation to stop
funding the Scouts over their discriminatory policies.

And finally, an article from the New York Times about the changing of
the generational guard in the LGBT community. Generation
LGBTQIA.

If the gay-rights movement today seems
to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking
something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary
of male/female. The core question isn’t whom they love, but who
they are -- that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation.

But what to call this movement? Whereas
“gay and lesbian” was once used to lump together various sexual
minorities -- and more recently “L.G.B.T.” to include bisexual
and transgender -- the new vanguard wants a broader, more inclusive
abbreviation. “Youth today do not define themselves on the spectrum
of L.G.B.T.,” said Shane Windmeyer, a founder of Campus Pride, a
national student advocacy group based in Charlotte, N.C.

Part of the solution has been to add
more letters, and in recent years the post-post-post-gay-rights
banner has gotten significantly longer, some might say unwieldy. The
emerging rubric is “L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.,” which stands for different
things, depending on whom you ask.